


a day in the life

by taywen



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Fugue Feast in July, Gen, Human!Outsider, Light Angst, Low Chaos (Dishonored), Post-Low Chaos Ending, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 05:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7605631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taywen/pseuds/taywen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“He doesn’t get out much,” Corvo said apologetically.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“One could also say I am constantly ‘out’. I am, after all—”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Don’t say it,” Corvo said, trying for stern and falling somewhere closer to pleading. “Please.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>The Outsider gave Corvo a look, but obligingly remained silent about the truth of his identity.</i>
</p><p>Corvo takes a day off. The Outsider, temporarily human, joins in the fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a day in the life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [murtogg](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=murtogg).



> written for my Fugue Feast in July recipient, murtogg. the prompts I used were: Corvo going fishing with Samuel, the Outsider becoming mortal for a day, and to a lesser extent, CeceliaxCallista.
> 
> hope you enjoy it, murtogg, and happy fugue feast!

Samuel took Corvo out on the _Amaranth_ early in the morning, when the sun had just begun to stain the horizon red and orange. It was the best time to fish, or so he’d told Corvo, before the traffic of the day disturbed the fish and made catching anything other than hagfish an exercise in frustration.

“I ate a lot of brined hagfish after I escaped prison,” Corvo had pointed out. It wasn’t his favourite, but it filled his stomach and kept him moving, which was the point.

“I know,” Samuel had said in that world-weary old voice of his. “But you don’t have to any longer, Corvo.”

Corvo sat quietly at the aft of the _Amaranth_ , holding the fishing rods, as Samuel piloted them upriver, away from Dunwall Tower. The city was mostly silent around them, the only sounds the lapping of the water against the sides of the boat, and the hum of her engine.

“Should be a nice day,” Samuel remarked, looking up at the sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight, a rarity for Dunwall.

“I hope so.” Corvo cast his gaze over the river. Its waters were filthy, but he could make out vague shapes beneath the surface. Plants, accumulated garbage, the occasional darting of a fish. He could possess the body of a fish, or get a better picture of the river with his dark vision, but Corvo had used the powers the Outsider had granted him only sparingly in the months since Emily’s return to the Tower. To use it for something as frivolous as this seemed— inappropriate.

Samuel led them to a sheltered inlet past Draper’s Ward. “Used to be a stream here,” he explained as he slowed the _Amaranth_ to a halt and began to tie them up against the remnants of an old dock, “back before the Kaldwins took the throne. The city was smaller then.”

Corvo looked up at the city, at the rows of tenement buildings and shops, the currently empty streets. How long had the stream been there? Since the time of the city Dunwall was built on, or had it formed in the period between? There was no trace of it now; it seemed like nothing more than a particularly sharp bend in the river.

“Well, nothing to do now but wait.” Samuel settled back into his customary seat, pulling out a flask. He uncapped it and held it out to Corvo. “Drink?”

Corvo eyed it dubiously, remembering what had happened the last time he’d accepted a drink from Samuel.

The old man chuckled ruefully. “It’s coffee. There’s a bit of rum in it, but no poison. I promise.”

Corvo shrugged and took a sip, suppressing a shiver as the coffee burned down his throat. It brought with it a welcome warmth; the air over the river was cool in the early morning.

“So, what do I do?” Corvo raised the fishing rods.

“Well, we’ll have to untangle the lines first.” Samuel sounded far too amused as he tucked the flask away again, before reaching out to deal with the tangled fishing line.

“Have I mentioned that I’ve never done this before?”

“A few times.”

Corvo watched in mystified silence as Samuel separated the lines in a few moments, deftly untying a knot that had somehow formed in the time between Samuel handing him the fishing rods and their arrival at the fishing spot.

“Bait first,” Samuel said, reaching into the bucket of worms he’d brought along for that purpose. Corvo winced as he pierced it on the hook; it was still _squirming_. “Squeamish?” His surprise quickly faded into something more sombre.

Corvo couldn’t stand that regretful look on Samuel’s face. “It’s fine,” he said quickly and it was, for the most part. If he sometimes woke in a cold sweat, barely-healed burns throbbing with phantom pain or thought himself back in the torture chamber at Coldridge when he heard a servant stoking the fire-- well, it happened less and less frequently as time passed.

Samuel eyed Corvo, as if he didn’t quite believe him, but let the matter drop. He took the fishing rod that had yet to be baited and inclined his head toward the centre of the Wrenhaven. “Now, cast it in the river.”

Corvo dutifully lowered the worm into the water next to the _Amaranth_. A muffled snort greeted his efforts; when he looked over, Samuel had a hand pressed over his mouth. His shoulders started shaking with suppressed mirth as Corvo glared at him.

“What did I do _now_?” Corvo didn’t bother hiding his exasperation. At this rate, he’d never catch a fish, much less the prize trout Emily had asked for.

“You— You’re supposed to cast the line into the water,” Samuel said. “Like this.” He tilted the fishing rod back, then flicked it forward, sending the skewered worm sailing towards the far bank. It landed with barely a splash, much farther out than Corvo’s own line.

Corvo sighed. “Maybe it’s best that I didn’t do that. I would probably have gotten tangled in my hair.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Samuel said gravely, which was an outrageous lie considering Corvo’s record so far. “Go on.”

“I’ll try my best,” Corvo said, gingerly lifting the worm out of the water. It seemed to be dead now, which was something of a relief. He drew the fishing rod back and cast it forward, trying to mimic Samuel’s smooth motions.

“Maybe you should just take mine,” Samuel said a few minutes later, snatching Corvo’s rod out of his hand after Corvo had indeed snagged the hook in his own hair, and hit Samuel in the back of the head with the worm on the next three tries. The last two had even been accidents. “Here, you just hold it until you feel a tug on the line.”

“What do I do then?”

“I’ll show you. If you manage to get a bite first, hand it to me and I’ll bring it in.”

Corvo nodded and settled in to wait.

* * *

The sun had risen above the horizon when Corvo spoke next. He’d taken to peering out at the water, tracking the progress of various vessels up and down the river as the city slowly woke, or squinting into the depths, trying to make out what was beneath the surface. He was fairly certain there was a copper coin down there; that, or a particularly shiny piece of broken glass. The doubt had kept him from diving in to find out.

“You mentioned seeing faces in the water,” Corvo said.

“Aye.” Samuel sounded distracted, his focus taken by the fish he was trying to bring in. He’d caught and released three so far; Corvo had yet to feel so much as a nibble.

“Does it usually happen during the day?”

That got his attention. “Hm? No, why-” Samuel frowned, leaning carefully over the edge to see where Corvo was pointing. A pale face was rising out of the depths of the river. “Outsider’s eyes!”

Corvo wasn’t sure what it said about himself that he wasn’t so much alarmed as bemused by this turn of events.

“Oh,” Corvo said as the Outsider’s head broke the surface, his expression screwed up in distress as he coughed and sputtered. His skin was freezing when Corvo reached out to grab a flailing arm, icy water soaking through the sleeve of his coat in a matter of seconds. Water slopped over the edge of the boat as Corvo hauled him in, but the _Amaranth_ stayed afloat.

“Guess you won’t be catching Lady Emily that prize trout she was asking for,” Samuel said in the blank tone of someone who had witnessed something exceedingly shocking and had yet to come to terms with it.

Corvo stifled his first impulse, which was to laugh hysterically, and simply stared at the Outsider instead. He lay slumped in the floor of the boat, his ringed fingers curled tightly around Corvo’s wrist, but he lifted his head to glare at Samuel.

“I am far superior to some _fish_ ,” the Outsider said haughtily. The effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that he looked more like a soggy, furious cat than the embodiment of the Void; any chance of maintaining his divine dignity was shot when he dissolved into a coughing fit, the whole boat shaking with the force of it.

“Corvo-” Samuel’s voice shook, but he carried on, “-is this who I think it is?”

“I am the Outsider,” the deity proclaimed before Corvo could reply. He wiped at his face with one soaked sleeve, which did little to help him clear the water away.

Corvo shrugged when Samuel looked at him pleadingly. The Outsider allowed him to wipe his face with a handkerchief, though rivulets of water continued to stream out of his soaked hair. He looked paler than usual in the sunlight, unreal, his lips tinged blue and eyes far too dark to be mistaken for mortal.

“Submersion is as unpleasant as I remembered,” the Outsider said, finally releasing Corvo’s wrist in favour of sitting up. He looked unreal, and yet far too normal - with his lanky limbs and slight pout, he resembled nothing so much as a sulky teenager. He drew his legs up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them, and shivered.

Corvo knew that the Outsider wasn’t the boy that he appeared to be, but it was hard to reconcile the trembling youth before him with the deity who had granted him power when he’d had nothing. The mere fact that the Outsider had helped him, even if it was for reasons Corvo couldn’t understand, was enough to spur him into action. He shrugged out of his coat and draped it over the Outsider’s slender shoulders.

The Outsider blinked up at Corvo, surprised; his pale fingers curled around the edges to tug it more closely around himself. Then he looked sharply at Samuel, who was in the process of unmooring them. “What are you doing, Samuel Beechworth?”

Samuel flinched, but he didn’t falter at the knots. “I figured you and Corvo’d want to return to Dunwall Tower, Your- er- Worship.”

“You may address me as ‘Outsider’. And I refuse to leave. This is supposed to be a ‘day off’, is it not?” The Outsider glanced back at Corvo for confirmation.

“It is,” Corvo agreed. “But if you need help-”

“I do not.” The Outsider spoke with the same authority that he used to render judgment on Corvo’s actions at shrines or in dreams. It almost made up for his decidedly unauthoritative, vulnerable appearance. “There is no need for concern. And returning to the Tower would only cause hysteria among those who saw me, which seems counterintuitive.”

“Reckon there’s a bit of time left before the river’ll be too busy to fish,” Samuel said carefully. He stared when the Outsider reached out to pick up his discarded fishing rod and held it out to him.

“Yours is going to sink if you do not take it out of the water soon,” the Outsider informed Corvo.

There was nothing to do but take the fishing rods back up and resume their previous activity. Corvo grimaced when he saw that some enterprising fish had made off with his worm while he was distracted by the Outsider’s sudden arrival.

“You will not need bait,” the Outsider said.

Corvo exchanged a look with Samuel over the Outsider’s head, but cast his line back into the river all the same. He didn’t even hit anyone with it this time around.

“Now you’re just showing off,” Samuel muttered, rolling his eyes when Corvo grinned at him.

Something tugged at the end of the line immediately, nearly jerking the rod out of Corvo’s hands. He pulled it back instinctively, remembering how Samuel had reacted in the same situation, and could only stare in surprise as a large fish sailed through the air and into his lap.

“Don’t just sit there, Corvo.” The Outsider’s voice was tinged with amusement. “Your prize trout will escape if you let it.”

Samuel reacted first, wrapping an arm around the flopping trout and deftly unhooking the line from its mouth with his free hand. “Do you want to-?”

Corvo shook his head. Emily had been mostly joking about him bringing her a trophy back, and it seemed wasteful to kill the creature simply to show her.

The fish splashed back into the water, its sleek body flashing away as it swam upriver.

“Must’ve been three feet long,” Samuel said, wistful. “Fifteen pounds, easy.”

“Is that unusual?” Corvo honestly had no idea.

“That was the biggest river trout in the Wrenhaven.” The Outsider’s tone was impossible to read. “And you— released it.” His dark eyes seem to bore into Corvo; even without the eerie atmosphere of the Void, or the darkness he exuded at shrines, the intensity of his stare was unnerving.

Samuel cleared his throat, shuffling back to his seat. “Didn’t realize they still ventured this far down the Wrenhaven.”

“You said I could catch one,” Corvo said, betrayed.

“In theory.” Samuel looked uncomfortable, not quite meeting his eyes. “I didn’t want to disappoint Lady Emily.”

The Outsider made a noise. He looked surprised, when Corvo turned back to him, that the sound had come from himself— that it continued to issue from his mouth. He was _laughing_.

“You are many things, Corvo,” the Outsider began, still smiling, “but a skilled fisherman is not one of them. Without my intervention, you would not have caught a single fish.”

“With friends like these,” Corvo muttered, shaking his head. He only thought about the Loyalists for a moment, a brief flash of regret that was gone too quickly to make much of an impact. A reminder that things got better, that wounds could heal and that time marched on.

“It’s about time to be moving on,” Samuel said. “Cecelia mentioned something about a late breakfast.”

“I have not eaten in four thousand years,” the Outsider said, intrigued.

Samuel looked at Corvo beseechingly again. He probably regretted the sequence of events that had led to him ferrying a heretical, now-pardoned assassin and a seemingly young man who made outrageous but undoubtedly true claims without qualm.

“We should go, then,” Corvo said. “Wouldn’t want it to be cold when we get there.”

* * *

The Outsider stumbled when they reached the humble dock, grabbing for Corvo’s arm before he could fall flat on his face. His next step was shaky, but the one after was more confident, and he strode up the short flight of stairs to the yard behind the pub without Corvo’s aid.

“This was where you first met me.” The Outsider craned his head back to stare up at the building, as if he could see through the brick and mortar to the dingy attic the Loyalists had so graciously consigned to him. “You caught my eye before then, but there was no suitable opportunity to bestow my mark before.”

Corvo bit back his first question, which was _when_ , when had the Outsider first noticed him, what had Corvo been doing? Failing at the only worthwhile duty he’d ever been entrusted—?

“Things turned out well enough as it is,” he said instead. Emily could use some more support - in Parliament, from the Abbey, with the military - but they would make do. The plague was cured, and the people loved their young Empress. They would make do.

The Outsider turned, frowning. “You worry. There is no need for it. Unrest will come, but not for many years.”

“Corvo!” The back door burst open before Corvo could reply, revealing a grinning Cecelia. The expression faltered when she saw the Outsider, her gaze darting over the Outsider - still wearing Corvo’s coat draped over his shoulders, damp-haired and dark-eyed - but she rallied. “Are you Corvo’s friend?”

“I suppose I must be.”

“This is— Lev,” Corvo said, blurting out the first name that came to mind. “Lev—” he looked pointedly at the Outsider, hoping he’d play along, “—this is Cecelia.”

“Nice to meet you,” Cecelia said, dubious.

The Outsider stared at her for several long moments. Corvo barely kept himself from twitching, trying to find a way to break the awkward silence and coming up blank.

“Likewise,” the Outsider said at last, as if he were bestowing a favour that she had better appreciate.

“Well— please, come in.” Cecelia stepped aside to allow them past.

“It’s good to see you, Cecelia,” Corvo said as they stepped inside. “It’s been too long.”

“Yeah.” She smiled again, sincere; at least she didn’t seem too put off by the Outsider’s strange behaviour. “Callista said you were busy at Dunwall Tower. And look at how the city’s come alive again! You must be busy.”

“Callista?” She’d made no mention of meeting with Cecelia, or writing to her. Not that Corvo discussed many things with her beyond Emily’s studies.

“Uh, yeah.” Cecelia ducked behind the bar, her cheeks going as red as her hair. “Are you hungry?” She turned her back, busying herself with the food.

“Love is nothing shameful,” the Outsider said, but distractedly, as he tried to peer over the bar to see what she was doing.

“I know that,” Cecelia said sharply, glaring at him when she turned back around with two plates heaped with food - bacon and diced potatoes and scrambled eggs. “But it’s no one’s business but our own.”

The Outsider nodded gravely.

“He doesn’t get out much,” Corvo said apologetically.

“One could also say I am constantly ‘out’. I am, after all—”

“Don’t say it,” Corvo said, trying for stern and falling somewhere closer to pleading. “Please.”

The Outsider gave Corvo a look, but obligingly remained silent about the truth of his identity. “That smells interesting,” he said, turning back to Cecelia.

She looked between the two of them slowly, a slight frown on her face. Corvo wondered what she thought of them; if she found them odd, she said nothing about it. “Well, hopefully it tastes good. I do all right with cooking but I’m not Lydia…” Cecelia trailed off, shaking her head. “You should eat it before it gets cold.”

The Outsider pulled a plate towards himself and picked up a piece of potato. He yelped and dropped it back on the plate, giving the entire meal an expression of utter betrayal.

“What’s—”

“It hurt me,” the Outsider said accusingly.

“It’s still hot. Food tends to taste better that way,” Corvo said. He took up the cutlery that Cecelia had provided and speared a square of potato for himself. “Blow on it first if it’s too hot for you.” He demonstrated, then popped it into his mouth.

The Outsider watched him chew and swallow before turning back to his own food. He wrapped his hand carefully around the fork, like a child, and clumsily poked it into a bit of egg.

“So, what does he do?” Cecelia asked, leaning against the bar opposite Corvo as they watched the Outsider navigate the fork to his mouth.

“Guess,” the Outsider said imperiously, around a mouthful of egg.

“Chew with your mouth closed, please,” Corvo said.

Cecelia hummed thoughtfully. “A natural philosopher? Like Dr. Sokolov?”

“Certainly not!”

Corvo couldn’t stifle his snort then, shaking his head at the Outsider’s indignation. His haughty attitude and strange disconnection with simple tasks like eating or making small talk wouldn’t have been out of place in a natural philosopher, though Corvo valued his life too much to voice the comparison aloud.

He watched - surprised but ultimately pleased - as Cecelia made increasingly outlandish guesses and the Outsider continued to deny them. None of them elicited the same outraged denial as her first one, and the Outsider seemed to realize it was becoming more of a game as each guess went on.

“All right,” Cecelia said, “I’ve got it now. Samuel’s long-lost son, returned from the sea.”

“I do have an affinity for the sea,” the Outsider said. “Though I am the son of no one.”

“Where is Samuel, anyway?” Corvo glanced around the bar, but it was deserted apart from the three of them.

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll be here soon.” The casual, dismissive way Cecelia said it only made Corvo suspicious; when she avoided his gaze as he looked at her, the feeling only intensified. He’d thought he could _trust_ Cecelia—

“It’s a surprise, Corvo,” the Outsider told him, patting clumsily at his shoulder. He put too much force behind it, and kept his fingers rigidly straight, touching Corvo only with his palm. As if he’d seen the movement done before, but never actually tried to execute it for himself.

Strangely, that made Corvo’s stomach twist for different reasons. The Outsider had said he hadn’t eaten in four thousand years, not that he’d never eaten before. So he’d been mortal once, though he didn’t remember much about it if he didn’t know how to eat hot food or pat a friend on the shoulder. Or perhaps he’d never had the opportunity to befriend another or eat a hot meal—

The Outsider sighed, setting his fork down on his now-empty plate. He’d fairly devoured the meal in between answering Cecelia’s outrageous questions. “Don’t trouble yourself on my account, my dear. You have enough to deal with.”

“But—”

“Corvo. I can take care of myself.”

“That’s just how Corvo is,” Cecelia put in. “Always trying to look after everyone else.”

“Everyone that _needs_ it.” The distinction was an important one. He’d never felt the impulse to protect Havelock or Martin or Pendleton. Even Wallace and Lydia had seemed like they could take care of themselves, though he’d found out the hard way that that wasn’t the case.

“Yes.” The Outsider ignored Corvo, focussing entirely on Cecelia. “I’ve noticed that about him.”

Corvo grumbled and applied himself to the remains of his meal, finishing up just as the back door to the pub opened once more.

Emily trotted in, followed at a more sedate pace by Callista and her uncle; Samuel brought up the rear.

“Did you _really_ catch the biggest trout in the Wrenhaven, Corvo?” Emily asked, hurrying over to him. Her steps faltered when she saw the Outsider, her grin fading quickly into a frown. “Oh. It’s you.”

“Empress Emily.” The Outsider’s voice took on the cadence he used in the Void or at shrines raised in his name.

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” Callista said, coming up alongside Emily. Geoff looked just as concerned, taking up a position on Emily’s other side.

“No,” the Outsider said, dragging the syllable out, all cool amusement, “we haven’t.”

“This is—” Samuel started.

“—Lev. I’m between jobs right now,” the Outsider said, adjusting Corvo’s uniform coat where it had started to slide off one shoulder.

“Why are you wearing Corvo’s coat,” Emily said, not quite a question. She wrinkled her nose, peering suspiciously up at the Outsider.

“I was in the river. Corvo graciously offered it to me, after helping me out of the water.”

“Why were you swimming with your _clothes_ on?”

“I can’t swim.”

That answer seemed to appease her, oddly enough. She clambered up onto the barstool next to him, making no secret of her scrutiny. “I guess it makes sense for Corvo to help you. You helped him, right?”

“After a fashion. I merely provided him with a tool. It was he who decided to use it.” The Outsider tilted his head. “I intervened a bit more directly today, when Corvo and Samuel were fishing.”

“You cheated!” Emily leaned around the Outsider to gape at Corvo.

“I didn’t mean to,” Corvo protested, finding his voice at last.

“Corvo was trying his best, Lady— Empress Emily,” Samuel said gravely as he slipped behind the bar to pour himself a drink.

“You were hopeless, weren’t you,” Geoff said from Corvo’s other side.

Only years of honed reflexes kept Corvo from flinching; he hadn’t even noticed the captain walking past to take a seat, nor had he seen Cecelia and Callista slipping away to a booth in the corner. He could forgive himself for the latter - Cecelia had a knack for going around undetected if she wanted - but Geoff wasn’t so gifted.

“It’s harder than it looks,” Corvo said.

“Sure it is,” Geoff agreed easily, accepting the drink that Samuel passed him if only so he could use it to hide his smirk.

“Takes practice,” Samuel added, his face contorted strangely in an effort to keep from laughing.

Corvo glared at both of them and pointedly turned his back, returning his attention to Emily and the Outsider. Any lingering misgivings seemed to have been dispelled; Emily was questioning the Outsider enthusiastically.

“But how did you end up in the river?” Emily asked.

“There was a stream there once, and the river was much shallower then.” The admission sounded grudging.

Emily patted him on the shoulder. “Corvo taught me how to swim at our country home. Maybe he can teach you too.”

“I imagine he would,” the Outsider said in a strange tone. Corvo couldn’t identify the emotion in it, and the Outsider had his back to him, making it impossible to gauge his expression. “I’ll be gone by tomorrow, however.”

“Back to the blue place?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re taking a day off too, just like Corvo,” Emily concluded.

“Everyone’s taking the day off, it seems,” Corvo remarked, leaning on the bar so he could raise his eyebrows at her.

“It was Callista’s idea,” Emily said, pointing at her tutor without hesitation.

Callista remained oblivious, talking quietly with Cecelia at the booth in the far corner. Cecelia laughed softly at whatever she said, too low for more than the sound of her voice to be heard.

“Well,” Emily amended, when Corvo gave her an unimpressed look, “I knew you’d be distracted thinking about my safety even when you were _supposed_ to be relaxing. So it just made sense to come relax with you; now you don’t have to worry!” Emily grinned, clearly pleased with her superior logic.

“Thoughtful of you,” Corvo said, deadpan.

“I know,” Emily said, accepting that as her due. “Callista brought me books and paper and crayons if you want to go have a nap or do something else too,” she added, starting to look anxious.

The Outsider had already begun to investigate the bag Callista had brought, pulling out an assortment of crayons and several blank sheets of paper which he then distributed between the three of them. Geoff and Samuel were laughing about something, probably at Corvo’s expense, and Callista and Cecelia were just disappearing down the back hallway.

It was such a change from the frantic week he’d spent at the pub, in and out on his missions to topple Burrows’ regime. The hushed, heavy atmosphere that had settled over the building then was long gone, replaced by camaraderie and laughter. Corvo couldn’t help but smile.

“There’s nowhere I’d rather be,” he told Emily sincerely, and picked up a crayon.


End file.
